PTSD
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I am at a loss on what to say. I’ve felt a powerful sense of blankness and loss of feeling. I’m like a mannequin, or robot. Didn’t make it to work last night. Too much going on, house stuff, work, family stress… I spent most of the day at the house supervising a housecleaner who
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I’m hearing voices. “No one cares if you live or die.” They just keep saying that. I’m stressed about it. “You will die alone.” What would Dr Black say? Don’t fight it, don’t fight them, play therapist. We all die alone and that’s okay. They don’t listen to me when I say anything. They tell
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Is this what normal feels like? I know, I know, a problematic term. Who is really normal? I get it. But you know what I mean. We know what normal looks like. People who function, are rational, don’t hear voices, don’t try to kill themselves. When well-adjusted people go through life, they tend to finish
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Jesus Christ the flashbacks…I am lost in my head so often. Stuck in memories, stuck in the past. The juxtaposition of bipolar with PTSD is painful and aggravating and weird. A doctor found that this PTSD profoundly affects my life. Pile on a manic or depressive episode and I’m suddenly dealing with intrusive thoughts and
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When I got to work tonight and saw my assignment – ED psych (emergency department) – my heart sank. It’s another one of those things that can happen – getting floated around the hospital. Usually, they use float pool staff but if they’re all busy or don’t exist, they tap the next available staff. Still
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I always knew this day would come, and it didn’t take long at all. Got another shitty work email this week. This time, a memo rescinding the VHA directive to provide gender-affirming care to trans vets. Effective immediately, the VA no longer provides gender-affirming care. “Unless such veterans are already receiving care from VA” –
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More psych patients – on a nephrology floor. He tried to hang myself, like I tried to do ten years ago. Family found him, he was intubated, and then extubated, and is waiting on being medically cleared to the psych unit. He’s a 1:1 for safety. I’ve noticed my new coworkers don’t make me sit
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I could not sleep today. I took my meds but tossed and turned, images and memories burned into my brain, playing like a bad movie. I had a half dream/half memory of several people wrestling me into a bed and strapping me in. I could feel their needles as they shot me with drugs to
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As I sit with a schizophrenic patient in the same locking restraints in which I found myself not that long ago, I feel a tiredness I haven’t felt in a long time. To be sure, I didn’t think I could do this, I really didn’t. I’m still not sure how I am, other than white
Documenting my journey through the mental health system 